


a place we do not know

by lady_peony



Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2018-04-06 14:36:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4225614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_peony/pseuds/lady_peony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The familiar sounds of rumbling metal peters to a stop, the doors parting with a relieved exhale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a place we do not know

The doors chime behind him as he steps out, fingers curled firmly around the loops of the bulging plastic bag. Natori wrinkles his nose at the mingled cigarette smoke and car exhaust in the air, brings up his other hand to adjust his hat. 

The subdued chatter of five-o-clock murmurs past his ears. There's an ambling grey flock of salarymen, muttering restaurant names; a few cram school students drifting down the sidewalk, yawning over the papers in their hands. 

None of them give the actor a second glance. 

Natori allows himself a tiny grin at this, tips his head once in greeting to his profile emblazoned across the store windows. A tragic historical romance. His standard fare, aside from the occasional cumbersome costume and a few faster-paced action scenes. 

All he had left now were a scatter of promotional photos and wrap-up interviews. His cashier at the store had chattered on about the movie as pink nails swiped through his purchases, her eyes glowing with excitement. 

He did hope she would enjoy the ticket he had slipped over the counter when she had turned her back to reach for a bag.

The image of his apartment bed flashes to mind for a moment and he sighs. Pity he couldn't rest so soon, not with the new case he needed to investigate. It would be easier if he headed to an inn tonight, closer to the meeting point than his apartment would be. The Natori house would be at an even more convenient distance from his destination.

The familiar sounds of rumbling metal peters to a stop, the doors parting with a relieved exhale. Natori boards the back of the bus slowly, finally decides he could put up with at least one night at his family house, if he must. 

Drowsy silence greets Natori's entrance, broken only by the occasional tapping finger on a phone. From his line of sight, the bus looks reasonably full, although not enough for passengers to go to the trouble of standing. 

The ground stutters beneath his feet as the bus moves forward, then picks up into a smoother glide. Natori takes care to step lightly down the aisle, avoiding other passengers' feet and bags. The bus is more crowded than he had originally thought.

As Natori moves, he reaches one hand towards a nearby pole for stability, then for the next one by the row after, and yet another row on, as he checks each side for an empty spot. 

With every pole he passes by, the metal is chilly on his palm, light static dancing near the cuff of his sleeve. His current suit hugs his frame too tightly for Natori's comfort. A recommendation from a certain clothing company he had advertised for earlier that day. He had to admit, it did present a crisp silhouette behind cameras, whatever his misgivings about it might be.

Natori looks down at an empty seat the exact moment his fingertips recoil from metal, sparks tingling up his hand. 

He draws in a sharp breath. 

Matoba Seiji blinks up at him once from the seat by the window, composure thoroughly unruffled. "Natori-san," he says. 

Natori always has seen him from a distance. No sighting has ever been more substantial than the signature long hair and the same traditional robes, dark as shadow. 

Matoba is wearing a suit now. He could almost pass for any other normal young businessman. 

Yet even dressed as he is now, no one else had dared to sit beside him. 

It might have been the conspicuous self-assured bearing of a clan head.

Or some deeper animal instinct, perhaps. _There is danger here. Don't get too close._

"Well, Natori-san?" Matoba's hand is turned up, palm open towards the seat besides his. His glance is seemingly unconcerned with the outcome of Natori's choice.

Natori sweeps his gaze to the seats around him, only to circle back to Matoba's upturned lips. He feels the lines in his face rearrange automatically into a default interview expression, genial and obliging, before he slides into the seat. 

Surprisingly, Matoba doesn't speak once Natori sits, only turns to glance through the window at the sunset gilding the sky. 

Natori moves his right hand to press against the paper doll in his pocket, just briefly. No heat at all. Safe enough. 

He glances down at his wristwatch, numbers tumbling through his head. Another thirty minutes to go. Over the jutting bone of his wrist, the lizard clambers past the watch's band to the bend of his elbow.

Matoba's reflection shifts in the window when he dismisses the view, face turned to stare straight ahead. 

 

*

 

An elderly lady minces to the front, edges of a violet shawl drifting out of sight after the ticket machine beeps approvingly, allowing her to exit.

The muscles in Natori's legs cramp up and he holds back the urge to shake them out. Unfortunate, that the bus seats here were not as comfortable as those of the agency cars. 

His gaze is pulled towards the space across the aisle before he drags his eyes to his right. 

Matoba's eye is closed. 

His head was just about resting against the glass of the window, his posture as close to sloppy as Natori had ever saw from him. Despite his appearance, there was still a noticeable aura around Matoba, something as tangible as pins-and-needles on skin. 

Power that Natori's exorcist side recognizes by instinct, power of the clan that he now knows more of from direct experience. It would be better to ignore Matoba, whatever the risks from that might be. 

Natori's fingers stop, hesitate just above Matoba's shoulder. 

He takes in a breath. His wrist tenses, unable to descend the last inch. 

Why was he always so uncertain?

"If it is my stop you are concerned about," Matoba says, without opening his eye, "you shouldn't be." 

Natori's fingers snap to his hat, adjusts it more securely over his hair. "Why not?" he says, his smile all courtesy, his voice bright. Too much so. "It is simply good manners to ask." 

The dangling line of hand grips keep swaying overhead. Empty, the way all the seats are now.

"Pointless." Matoba raises his hand to tap the button on his right. A responding beep echoes in return. "It is the same as yours, after all." 

Natori looks to the window and grimaces. As the bus stops, Natori rises to his feet, sweeps up his bag from the floor into his left hand. Matoba's steps echo, just half a beat behind Natori's own. 

The distance to the front seems to stretch on with each step Natori takes. When he gets there, the driver nods perfunctorily towards the machine, the bus fare displayed in bright numbers. 

Natori places his paper ticket onto the tray and lowers his hand into his jacket's right pocket. 

Nothing there, save for a crumpled rectangle of charm paper. 

Natori smiles, switches his bag over to his other arm. His hand dips down into the opposite pocket. 

This was definitely a problem. 

"Ah," Natori says, turns up the warmth of his smile. "I just had a question, if it is not too much trouble." 

The driver's face, previously smooth as water, begins to crease, thin eyebrows drawing close like two brittle reeds. 

There's a huff of air behind Natori's shoulder. A hand closes around his elbow, pulls him a step away from the driver. Natori stares at Matoba's back in front of him, the tip of the ponytail swinging to rest. 

One hand brings out his ticket, places it at the same spot as Natori's. His other hand pulls out a card close to the machine, moves it downwards once. 

Twice.

The driver smiles and both tickets disappear from the tray.

Matoba moves towards the stairs to the open door, without looking at Natori. 

Natori waits a breath. Looks once more at the empty tray before he descends the stairs after Matoba. 

 

*

 

"Well," Natori starts. "What business required the Matoba head to take such transportation?" His fingers push a few long _sasa_ leaves off the edge of the bench and he watches them skitter across dark dirt. Another handful of leaves meander downwards to replace them. "Is some vengeful youkai haunting cars now?"

"There happened to be an incident," Matoba says, "with a scooter." His words have the impression of being precisely placed, handled as a painter would his brushstrokes. "It presented no small inconvenience after my meeting."

A truthful statement, if it is, and uninformative. 

Natori shouldn't have expected anything different, he reminds himself, especially from someone of an exorcist clan. All secrets had a cost. Or a price, if one was willing to pay it.

Natori brings up his hand to remove his glasses, frowns at the light spray of water flecking its surface. The stop they were resting under was less well-kept than Natori had assumed it would be, damp from what he guesses was the earlier rain that week. 

He slides his glasses into an inside pocket of his coat, loosens a button of his suit jacket. It wasn't like anyone was looking at him now.

"And yourself?"

Natori sits up at the voice, rests an elbow on the back of the bench. He tilts his head against the back of his hand, keeping the movement casual. Easy. 

Matoba's eye is looking straight at Natori. Natori doesn't avoid it, doesn't turn away like he might have, like he would have some other time. The entire situation was too absurd for the expected dance of conversational feints and indirect information-gathering. 

"I had asked," Matoba says, "after your business, as I had answered your curiosity. Only fair, wouldn't you say?" 

Natori's fingers curl into his palm, just shy of causing pain. I don't have to tell you anything, he thinks. 

Still, Matoba speaks true. Natori had started the conversation first.

Natori tips his chin to the bag next to his side, keeps his voice curt as possible. "There wasn't anything in the kitchen. So, shopping I went." 

Matoba makes a 'hmm' noise at that, says nothing more. 

Speaking of kitchens, Natori hasn't had anything to eat yet this afternoon. Or evening now, he corrects, looking at the long shadows on the ground.

His hand touches the corner of a sandwich in the bag before he unknots the handles with a twist of his fingers. 

"Do you want one?" Natori pulls out a sandwich--he's not sure which one he picked, but it hardly matters--and drops it next to Matoba's knee.

Matoba extends his hand towards the sandwich, then stops to glance up at Natori, something close to uncertainty darting across face. The creases of Matoba's suit jacket have bent into a new topography of valleys and hills.

"It's for the ticket," Natori says and looks away. He knows better than to leave debts unpaid. Least of all to Matoba.

Natori unsticks the tape on the wrapper in quick motions before he senses that the other sandwich lifted up from the bench. 

They don't speak for the next few minutes.

The salmon was fresh enough, at least, Natori decides, takes another mouthful of flaky fish and bread. 

Something about this reminds him of a school trip: the bus station, the sandwich in hand. If he tries to focus more insistently though, the details of his past school trips elude him. He recalls staring at the vivid dark arcs of passing birds against the sky, while the chatter of his classmates hummed on around him. 

He finishes the last bite and brushes a few crumbs from his fingers onto the wrapper. His hand folds it up neatly, tips the wrapper into the plastic bag next to him.

There's a rustle as Natori watches something drop into his lap. An empty wrapper, exactly like the one Natori had just put away. 

"Thank you for the food," Matoba says, properly polite as any houseguest, and pulls in his hand to his side. 

Natori stares at Matoba's face, or what he can see of it other than the inked paper. He weighs the likelihood of being banished from the next gathering if he pitches the wrapper at Matoba's head. 

He could risk the odds, surely.

Matoba is watching him, lips an indistinct curve from this angle. Was he smiling?

A bluster of wind suddenly nabs the wrapper from his knees to the ground.

Natori reaches instantly into his inside pocket for his glasses, adjusts the bridge of it over his nose. Drops his knees to the ground to peer at the corner beneath the bench where he last saw the wrapper. 

He extends his arm, shuffles a half step forward on his knees. There it was. His fingers have just snagged the right corner of the wrapper, when he hears the voice.

"No good. This is no good. Much too slow to walk there now."

Natori turns his head to look back, careful to keep his breathing low and normal.

Its pelt is all light gold, save for a patch at its throat, like the stamp of a white flower petal. It looks, in all aspects, like a weasel. A weasel in a red-brown kimono, barely as tall as half the length of Natori's hand. 

The yokai peeks over the edge of the road, right before the sidewalk drops to the pavement, then scampers back a few steps, careful to hold on to the cloth-wrapped box between its paws.

"The party will be waiting for me." Its tail drags behind as it creeps again to the edge. "Kazu-san will be waiting." Beneath the stony border, a silver ribbon of water, flowing on down the slope. 

It's just deep enough to wet the heels of most people's shoes if they happened to step into it. It also looked deep enough to sweep over the yokai's head, if it waded in.

Natori straightens up with the wrapper in hand. He shoots a look at the bench. Matoba too, is keeping an eye on the yokai, his expression one of flat disinterest.

The wrapper crinkles as Natori places it inside the bag, ties it tight. His fingers wander from the bag, brush against another smooth leaf trapped under it. Easy enough to find another one next to it, mostly dry, and a few more besides.

He doesn't need to think about it for his hands to move, making a twist here, a fold there.

Natori finishes it with a last twist, runs a fingernail over a side to even it out.

"I see. So that is what it is." Natori hears the words passing in a murmur over his left shoulder. Natori can't remember when Matoba had decided to lean in to observe his movements. 

Natori pushes himself off the bench and stands, stepping away from Matoba to move as slowly as he could to the side of the road.

He lets the leaf boat slide off his cupped palms into the water and steps back. The boat rests in place, bobbing up and down on the water in front of the yokai.

The yokai notices it immediately. "A ship?" it says. It looks first one way up the stream, then the other, then back at the boat before it. "What luck! To have such a fine vessel to carry me to the party!" 

The weasel leaps in and the boat follows the water, disappears in two breaths. 

Natori sits back, aware that his mouth was smiling, reluctant though he was to do so. "I almost thought I would forget," he says, mostly to himself. "After such a long time."

Natori can still feel Matoba's glance on him, as pressing as the wind pushing forward the knot of clouds overhead. Natori looks back at him, waits. He's too tired now to feign fear or politeness for Matoba's sake. Whatever risk Matoba presented to him, Natori knew he didn't have to act.

After a moment, Matoba only gives a smile, unreadable to Natori's eye. He can't tell if it means good or ill, not with the shadows cast by the changed light covering the other half of Matoba's face beyond the inked paper.

"What reason could you have to help it?" Matoba says. 

There was no reason for an exorcist to help a yokai, unless it was to seal it away or put it to rest. Other yokai were leashed with a contract, prized for their usefulness until they were not. 

Natori shrugs as casually as he can. "It was small. Harmless. I saw no reason not to." 

Matoba looks as if to say more, until he tilts his head towards an incoming sound. The sound settles when the black car pulls up to the sidewalk. 

Matoba moves towards it, smoothing down the buttons on his jacket as he does. 

He stops in front of the car's side. There's no expected sound of a door clicking open.

Natori sees Matoba stop. 

He looks back at Natori. "There's one more seat," Matoba says. 

Natori knocks off the last few leaves clinging to his suit, makes sure to pick up his bag. 

With a flick of his wrist, he settles his hat back over his head, and stands to his feet.

**Author's Note:**

> *i actually really like public transportation but public transportation does not have the same fondness for me and then this fic idea was created
> 
> *apparently in [some buses in japan](http://www.bus.or.jp/en/travel/index.html), you pay for the fare after you reach your stop, depending on the distance traveled, although in some cities, passengers pay a flat fare right when they board the bus. 
> 
> *the boat natori makes is a sasa leaf boat. so like an origami boat but leafier and more sailworthy.


End file.
